Happy Birthday Google+

Tomorrow Google+ celebrates its first birthday. Google’s most recent attempt to tap into the tricky social media market met with a luke-warm reception when it launched in June 2011 but has grown to over 200 million users. You can read almost as many opinions from people who believe it to be THE social network, and as many others who believe it will go the way of Google Buzz and Google Wave. While it does seem to have gained more traction than those two predecessors there is still a long way to go for it to compete, let alone topple, Facebook or Twitter.

It is not just about number of users too, but also how those people use the service. The average Facebook member spends 7.5 hours a month on their site. For Google+ it is just 3.3 minutes. That is a gulf that must be bridged much more urgently than user numbers. (source: Wikipedia)

I like Google+. It is more fun and nicer to look at than Facebook, and the active user base reminds of Twitter when it was young. Still, I do struggle to engage with it and find it is always the last on my list of networks to update.

To coincide with this anniversary, and Google I/O 2012, Google+ have just added a rather snazzy events app to the offering. Sure it’s nothing radical, but it does give me one more reason to update my brand profiles which I am sure is the main aim of the update. There is also a much-needed tablet app on the way which will hopefully improve the iPad browsing experience which is limited by the current mobile version.

Happy birthday Google+, I hope to wish you many more!